Husband's Top 5 New Recipes

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was trying out new recipes this summer and getting my husband to rate them. Well, I finally got him to compile the list of his favorites! These are only from the new ones that I had never made him before. I'll also show a link to the recipes if they're online, or I'll give credit where credit is due if it's from an old-school recipe book. So, without further ado, my husband's top five favorite food of the summer:

1.             Skinny Tuna Cake

I found these posted on Pinterest. You can find the recipe here. These were my husband's absolute favorite new meal. He loved the cakes themselves, but he could not get over the Chipotle Mayo. He wanted to put that stuff on everything! He had me make extra, so he could dip his potato wedges in it. 

Those potatoes aren't burnt. They're purple potatoes! Not the most photographic dish, but delicious. 

2.             Buttermilk Oven Fried Chicken

I had been meaning to try this recipe for years (Procrastinator? Me?)! This is a Self Magazine recipe that you can find here. It was tasty, and my husband especially liked that there was a little bit of a spicy kick to it, so it wasn't your stereotypical "oven fried chicken." The hardest part about this was just remembering to marinade the chicken in the buttermilk beforehand. It was really fun making the saltine breadcrumbs. Instead of putting them in a blender, I decided to let a little frustration out and put it in a ziplock bag and pound it into crumbs. Haha. It was a rough day. 

Sorry, no picture for this one. It was eaten before I thought to bring out the camera. 

3.             Avocado Toast

This one, I read about in Gwyneth Paltrow's newest cookbook, which I'm totally planning on buying. However, I just remembered it because it was so simple. I knew my husband would be game to try it because he's an avocado fiend. When we have fresh avocados from the farmers' market, we love to have this the next morning for breakfast.

All you have to do is toast a piece of bread, spread some mayo or vegenaise on it, put half of a sliced avocado on there, and then sprinkle with some Old Bay Seasoning. However, my husband and I decided that we like to put Greek Seasoning on it even more. Boom. Done. Super easy and tasty. My husband was in heaven. 

Simple and delicious. 

4.             Rustic Tomato Tart

This one can be found in the Williams-Sonoma Cooking from the Farmers’ Market cookbook. My husband said it tasted like pizza. Hey, if it looks like a pizza, smells like a pizza, and tastes like a pizza, I’m okay with calling it a pizza. It’s also very quick to make.

All you need are 2-3 ripe tomatoes of any color, salt, a clove of garlic, unsalted butter, an 8”x10” rectangle of frozen puff pastry, ¾ cup mozzarella, 4 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, 2 Tbsp of fresh basil, and some olive oil.

Heat the oven to 400˚F (200˚C), and put the rack in the upper third portion of the oven.

Slice the tomatoes, and place them on paper towels with some salt on them to help drain off excess moisture. Keep them there for roughly 30 – 60 minutes while you’re doing everything else.

Thaw out the puff pastry (mine didn’t take long to thaw), and cut it in half.

In a small bowl, melt the butter, and add the garlic, finely chopped (Or, if you’re like me, the pre-chopped stuff. Don’t judge. I hate how the smell lingers on your fingers when you do it yourself, and it is also faster.). Put the puff pastry on parchment paper, and then brush with the garlic butter mixture. Season with salt.

Leaving a quarter of an inch border, sprinkle the pastry with all of the mozzarella and half of the Parmesan. Put the tomato slices on top of that, and then sprinkle the rest of the Parmesan on top.

Bake until puffy and golden brown. I like to put my parchment paper on top of my pizza stone for easy handling and even baking. Chop the basil, and sprinkle on top of the tart, once out of the oven. Drizzle with some olive oil. Serve immediately. 

We've had this for dinner multiple times already. We both love it. 

5.             Pasta w/Avocado & Bacon

This was another really quick and easy dish. Since my husband adores avocado, I knew he would like it, but, add bacon, and there won’t be any leftovers. In fact, he ate it so fast that I couldn't get a picture. 

Honorable mention - One Pot Pasta

This dish was ridiculously easy. Like it says, it’s a one pot dish, meaning that you just throw it all together, cook it, and you’re done. Great for busy nights. It also has a little bit of kick to it, which was a nice surprise. I got to use a lot of my homegrown basil, which I always love. 

Check out these recipes. They are all delicious and relatively quick to make. What were some of your favorite dishes that you made this summer? 

Moving

You may or may not have noticed my absence from the blog recently. My husband and I moved into a house about 20-something miles from our old townhome. We started moving on July 25th, and we finished on July 29th. That's right, folks. It took us four full days of loading up trucks, trailers, cars, and anything else we could get our hands on to move here. By the end of it, I didn't even recognize the little place we called home for the last two years.

It looks so different without all of our furniture.

Before we could even start moving, we had to paint our new living room and kitchen. The old tenant had a thing for palm trees, and she had the walls an awkward moss green (palm tree?) color that would majorly clash with my couch. Luckily, four of our amazing friends came over for a paint party. 

That green was even worse in person. You can see our new color in the upper left corner of the picture.

Now, we're just working on finding homes for all of our belongings in our new place and getting rid of all the junk I had no idea we accumulated until we started boxing all of our stuff up. Shh...don't tell my husband. 

Then, last weekend, my brother and sister-in-law came to visit. Naturally, since my house wasn't exactly ready yet. I planned for us to do stuff elsewhere. Their guest bedroom and guest bathroom were done, as well as the kitchen, but not anything else. 

Living in the DFW metroplex, I knew about the Dallas Aquarium, but I saw the news talking about an exhibit at the Sea Life Grapevine Aquarium and decided to check or out. It was a little small, but a lot of fun, and I loved their emphasis on conservation and wildlife rescue. 

I was trying to stretch out our weekend more so much that I almost forgot about that dreaded moment in every teacher's vacation: my summer is over. That's right, being a band director, I'm required to go back earlier than the rest of the teachers for planning and helping with marching band. Monday was the day I went back. Two weeks of planning and marching band, followed by a week of teacher inservice, and then school is back in full swing. 

I do feel a little bad for the marching band kiddos though. It was so nice all of July, then August hit, and bam! it's the Sahara Desert outside. In case I have some people reading this that aren't acquainted with Texas weather, let me give you a visual: 

Yep, we're now in "summerer." It's this time of year that we can't wait for Fall to hit ~ the cooler weather usually hits around Halloween. Until then, I'll be working on the inside of my house and dreaming about the day they turn on the AC in my part of the school.